High Class Dining Experience - Some suggestions

So here are some of my thoughts on preparing for High Class Dining when next time any friend asks you to go out.

1. Find out if they require you to wear something weird - If it is a dinner jacket minimum - stick to minimum requirement until you want to look really loud. I suggest you call the restaurant and say that your jacket is with dry-cleaner and you didn't have time to pick it up. Wait for their response - most of the time they would say they are not strict - if that’s the case do not wear one. You will find out that the dry cleaners in the town are having some busy customers sitting in that restaurant that night!
2. Remember, there is no link in name and kind of restaurant - Stop believing in stereotypes you racist! And for once stop fooling around the idea of Abacus being a Chinese restaurant. This happens to be a European Restaurant where you find only sea food!!! So what looks,smells, and tastes like a Sushi is really spring rolls, and yes they may serve it with Wasabi but then why do you think they are high class.
3. Make sure you have eaten well before going in… eating a Big plate for $40 may not be your idea and specially when that big plate is really small. God forbids, if you forgot to eat before dinner, jump on to all the free bread that they serve… your friends may be hungry as well.

I think besides these points, it will be a good idea to make up some excuse and avoid going in the first place. You don’t want to be humiliated by some waitress for not calling "Prime Beef Carpaccio with Organic Baby Watercress and Shallot with Black Pepper Vinaigrette" right!

HP Computer Service

Once in a while, you can't help but praise your competitor. Well today is one such day. By the way, I own an HP PC that I bought just after coming over for my MBA (so I had no clue about my summer and also I was carrying a lot of corporate brand image from India). My PC had been giving me some trouble on and off with the "stuck shift key" problem and whenever I thought to send it over the net day everything was working fine.

Finally, in the first week of June, it decided to start troubling me forever and went permanently stuck. I called up HP service center and they asked me to send my PC over. Having all your data on your hard drive can be a big problem and I soon realized that when I started making copies of that on DVDs. It took me 3 weeks to get DVDs, get DVD burner software and finally to make those DVDs. All this while I kept using onscreen keyboard.

Having sent me PC, I was expecting some phone calls saying "you dropped water over your keyboard… there is a scratch etc etc. (which happened to me when I sent me Mobile phone to T-Mobile) and that you will have to pay so much for this and that… " I was ready to shell some dollars frankly.

What happened was not only surprising it was delighting. With-in 3 days I get this email that my PC in on its way back - no questions. I saw this information in the box that my keyboard was so damaged they had to replace it - again no questions!!! I give them this time - thanks a lot HP people… You were awesome. Next time you will call me to review my service contract - You will be hearing a Yes from a very happy customer!

Why a Pakistani restaurant is not good business in US?

Seriously this goes beyond the first thought of the rivalry between the two countries and trust me so far from the sub-continent we don’t really care as long as the skin is brown (I am in fact starting to feel for my Mexican brothers). Ask anyone who has experienced the ghost biryani or a stuffed naan in a Pakistani-Indian restaurant and he can almost swear by the mouth watering taste. I am in fact a great fan of all the Pakistani restaurants and yet wonder "Why is it that most of the Pakistani restaurants I have been to look deserted?"

First thing that came to my mind was that compared to some of the not so good restaurant, I found these restaurant were located in far-off, obscure locations. Could this be the reason - and this leads us straight to understanding of the Causality - Think of this in business perspective - is the location a factor or a result… or is it just another Spiral reasoning? I soon figured out that for a restaurant to exist you need a customer base - a large loyal regular customer base and if you don’t have that you better go to a place where you can survive even on a very small even ir-regular customer base - in other words cut down on the fixed costs as much as possible. Although I agree location is a factor... that alone would not help and thus Location has little to do for the Business here - it is more of a result than a cause.

A simple way to look at this would be to understand the sub-continent population in the US - A majority of which are Sikhs (would not eat in a Pakistani restaurant because of the way meat is cut), Gujratis (mostly vegetarians), South-Indian (a different league altogether) and Bengalis (who can not do away with their love for fish :)). So that leaves with a very small population base that patronizes these restaurants. Even this population is bounded while traveling with a person from the above-mentioned communities. So we get the mathematics in place now. What stop from Americans - well the spices and people who recommend - Think about it, why would I go to an Italian restaurant when no Italian is talking about it and on top of that they serve me food which is bland. A spiral reasoning again!

Thinking on these lines, compare this to a Indian fast food chain kind of a thing - Yeah Indian Fast Food. All you need to run this is some punjabi Chats, dhokla and paav bhazi, idli, vada and some variations of dosas. Add a normal $5 thali or a $8 buffet to it and you have the shop in business. How often will people turn up - as long as you have a weekly menu - I guess they would come. Keep the drink like "Chai" on a low and add some more snacks like Bhatoora and Samosa to fill your counter. I am also tempted to keep some indian style hookas to add that little touch… How about this for a business plan! Oh BTW, name it anything but Shalimaar :)

The last few hours in India

I had never been cheated like this before in my life. Reached Mumbai domestic airport from Delhi and decided to take a taxi for the international airport. As I came out one guy asked me if I need a taxi and I nodded. The usual black and yellow cab came and as I asked the guy about the fare he said he will show me the chart. Thinking that it will be the usual cab chart, I was fine until I got this weird chart stating the rate for domestic airport to international airport as 1350!!! “Stop the cab right now…” I shouted. Already pissed off with so many things in life I didn’t want to get this dirt on me anymore… I blasted the guy and just then the thought of being in Mumbai – the land of vanishing people – dawned up to me. I finally negotiated the price at 500 and reached the highway. Seeing me a little restless the guys led me to another taxi and flew away from there is no time; however not before sharing their loot with this taxi driver and requesting him to drop me to the airport. Man, only if I had some time in my hand and some more energies… the last few hours in India been a reminder for me – for a long time.

The service industry in a service-dominant country

For the entire duration of this MAP, one thing that has been haunting me in the service levels provided to us in this service-dominant country. I had been hearing about the Government sector having been clogged by the corruption and things not moving from one table to another and it will be a folly to compare my getting a driver’s license in less than 24 hours here in the US to the things back home; however what surprise me or rather shocked me this time was level of services in the private sector in India. So let me start giving you a few examples before I start –

First Time

Being a telecom analyst, I had believed that India has one of the most advance services in the world simply because we are a late arrival and do not bear the weight of legacy networks. However, here is what happened when I applied to Data services of Reliance. First of all, I had to furnish all the documents ranging from my passport to the letter from J&J in order to get a connection – the reason given: We are a country suffering from terrorism and we need to be doubly sure – my only contention was that if I can produce a forged driving license and a forged passport how long should it take me to forge a company’s letter head. Anyways those fell on deaf ears anyways. So after 3 days, I had my connection working and as I was heading to Delhi the same day I was happy to have some way to connect to the rest of the world on my field trip.

31 March – I reached Delhi and the connection was not working. After I called the customer care, I was told that I need the STD to be activated for using the internet services in Delhi as I had a Mumbai connection. Why on earth did they give me this connection, when I told them specifically that I would be traveling to North India in 3 days and I need to use it there. Anyways, the agent told me that I need to wait for 3 hours and this will be taken care off.
4th April – I kept calling the customer care every three hours since the last time I called them, and kept getting the same 3 hours crap. I finally lost it all and asked them to connect to the manager. I told him that I have lost 9,000 USD as my connection is not working and I am unable to sell my shares online and he better get this thing sorted or I will go to the consumer courts and sue reliance. He said it will surely be done by 9 AM tomorrow. It was 11 PM that time.

5th April – The net was still not working and this time I was told that the STD is fine but the roaming facility is not activated and it will take 3 hours to get that started.

10th April – The net was finally working – two days before I had to leave back for Mumbai!

The Second Time

Well this is a story about net again, I got this 80 rupees an hour card from my hotel and found that the net in my room I not working. I called up the maintenance and they asked me to do all sort of weird things ranging from changing the nodes of the network wire, starting the PC again to holding the jacks with both hands and trying again! Finally as I asked the guy to come to my room and sort it out, one lazy fellow reached in half an hour and tried some funny things again before declaring that the cable is not working and I need to get another cable. I said well fine, get me one… “It will cost you 35 rupees…” “To hell why?... this is supposed to come along the internet card” “Yeah but that is not working” “So what can I do, it is not working and I should get a replacement” “No sir, this got damaged here in this room and you will have to pay” “Okay go ahead and get me another one” I had to budge. It was 35 rupees more against the sunk cost of 80 rupees. Te guy brought another cable in another half an hour and after trying for some more time declared “Sorry sir, the cable on this floor was destroyed by mice last night so that might be the problem”… “So what can I do… you change my room” “Sir please call the reception for that…” and the guy left without even waiting for a response. “Sorry sir the hotel is completely booked and we cant give you any other room… ” Everyone is too busy to listen for a response… anyways it was pretty late by that time and I decided to sunk the 35+80 rupees and some prestige with that.

The Last Nail

It is funny how you get delayed in these flights and then the whole world crumbles around you. After reaching at Mumbai at 1:00 AM after a delay of 5 hours, I decided to check with my hotel to ensure my booking. “Yes sir, we have your room ready”. 1:45 I was at hotel and yet the room was getting cleaned… 3:00 AM still the same and I was loosing my patience in the hotel lobby, sleeping over my luggage… finally we got a suite for us… A SUITE!!! We wanted two separate rooms so that poor Nitesh can sleep without listening to my singing the whole night… what happened to our rooms. “Sir I don’t know, you talk to the manager in the morning”… to hell with it, and Nitesh and I decided to wait until we get another room… at 5 we had the other room and this suite and I slept in the luxury of a suite for the first time. Not for long though, as I got a call at 7 AM telling me to be ready to shift to my room. Again the guy didn’t bother to listen to my side. I called up reception this time and found the same guy… after asking him if he was the one who called I said I slept at 5 in the morning and there is no way I am shifting now… if he has it come upstairs and try to wake me up… this was my time to click the phone without bothering to listen… well I could not sleep after that and finally called the guy again to shift my room at 7:30… “I am just sending someone upstairs sir” and then I waited again till 10:30!!!

The state of the Fourth Estate

Did you catch the recent debate on Indian Cricket team’s dismissal performance on any of the news channels? That’s another thing that these debaters were themselves the non-performing cricketers for a long time, but that’s a different story.

OR, did you catch the big Aish-Abhishek wedding coverage, with all the incidents of look-alikes going to meet Aish or that of an actress going to media claiming to be Abhishek’s wife. The wedding itself was a bonanza for the paparazzi.

OR, god forbids if you caught the “Mat Chuko Chauhan” episode on one of these 24X7 news channels. The poor major was not allowed to speak a single word in the entire half an hour program amid numerous breaks.

If this is the state of fourth estate in India, I wonder how long informative journalism can breathe there. The scandals (be it exposed or created) and taking upper slots and high TRP rating, whereas the news or the real stuff is being thrown away somewhere. If you want to find out the turnout in UP election, you may have to stay tuned for more than 4 hours to see a small clip in the bottom; however the Bob Woolmer’s death was covered to the most specific details possible.
The media in India is on a suicidal track and I see no looking back for it now. Even the print media has been reduced to Page 3 and the cartoon paper these days. There was not a single day that I didn’t find a poor grammatical error in any of the newspapers I picked. Whoever reads this and why? Whoever watches the crap that comes over on those 24X7 news channels? How long can we really blame our middle class house wives for all the garbage on the Idiot box? How long should we buy the newspaper for our hostel wall collages? I think we need to find the answer to this sooner…